[fn-mote]

> Great writing can't be graded, as its value is entirely subjective.

Well... I have a lot of problems with this, on both sides of the fence.

Provocative start: How about we give up the idea that students are producing great work?

I mean, I imagine teachers think of the exercises they give as skills development.

One of the skills to develop is technical writing.

Surely beginning students do not know how to cite textual examples to back up their arguments. Understanding the role of evidence in making an argument should be fundamental to democracy. (Understanding that we are not living in that world recently in the US.) So they need to practice.

Choosing the theme is another skill. I don't have anything to say about it, but I don't have a problem with teachers asking students to try to figure something out before they write about it.

[quacked]

> How about we give up the idea that students are producing great work?

Almost all teachers are well ahead of you on this one. Far rarer is the belief that students are capable of great work. This is, in fact, my central point: if all of your assignments are bounded by the need for administrative convenience, creativity and originality cannot flourish.

Teaching writing through dry, separate "skills development" exercises is like teaching basketball as follows:

"Today we'll practice jumping from one ankle to the other. Today we'll practice reading a point guard centric offense. Today we'll be working on our vertical jump height. Now for the exam: demonstrate a cut behind the center and a layup. Hmm, your second step is slow, you get a C."

I am arguing that if you want to teach basketball, your students need to play a lot of basketball. Exercises will only really help them once they've experienced the game and have a burning internal desire to compete.

[ihateolives]

> I am arguing that if you want to teach basketball, your students need to play a lot of basketball. Exercises will only really help them once they've experienced the game and have a burning internal desire to compete.

Well. I played basketball since 7th grade. Not just played, trained 3 days a week. Before you can really play you have to master certain elements, otherwise it's just fooling around. And at first we trained all those elements separately. Balance, switching feet, turning. Just turning without the ball. Faster, slower. Jumping from left foot, from right. Catching the ball. Throwing it. Passing. Alone, with partner, against the wall. Hook shot, but just up, up, up, get the ball up. Hook from left, from right. Then hook standing directly below hoop. Left, right, left, again. Then adding movement. Over and over again. And then actually playing.

[quacked]

I play tennis, soccer, ultimate frisbee, jiu-jitsu, disc golf, rock climbing, hang gliding, whitewater kayaking, bicycling, and kite surfing, and I've taught many of the same to beginners.

I assure you that the instruction only works when the student wants to experience the final form, and they will not get any sense of what the final form is until they have "fooled around" and have an actual desire to learn the sport. At every level of their progression they need time to experience unstructured performance for fun. The same is true for writing.

Kids love to write when they're young and no one's hovering over their shoulders grading them. It's only once they get hit with the five-paragraph essays and the term papers and the dry grammar exercises that they learn to avoid writing, and associate it with boredom and stress.